AAPL Stock Drops 6% After Apple Passes AI-Driven Chip Costs to Consumers

Apple raised starting prices across its Mac and iPad lines on Thursday, passing higher memory and storage costs to consumers.

The company blamed a worsening shortage of memory chips tied to AI data center demand. Apple (AAPL) shares fell nearly 6%, as investors questioned whether the increases would cool sales.

Why Apple Raised Mac and iPad Prices Now

The increases reach almost every Mac and iPad and apply worldwide, according to Bloomberg. The MacBook Neo now starts at $699, up from $599. The 13-inch MacBook Air climbed to $1,299, while the entry 14-inch MacBook Pro hit $1,999, per 9to5Mac.

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iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods prices held steady. The split shows Apple targeting its most memory-hungry devices. Apple had already moved quietly, offsetting March increases with extra memory, then dropping the $599 Mac mini in May.

The cost pressure starts upstream. Contract prices for the DRAM used in PCs and phones roughly doubled in the first quarter. That was the steepest jump on record, according to TrendForce.

Memory makers Samsung and SK Hynix have redirected supply to meet AI memory demand from data centers. Apple now competes for what remains.

“We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly… we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today’s increases for iPad and Mac,” Apple, in a statement to Reuters

Relief looks distant. Micron, whose stock has ridden the AI memory rally, told investors the shortage could last into 2028.

Apple warned in April that conditions would worsen this year. Incoming CEO John Ternus inherits the squeeze on Sept. 1.

Shares slid nearly 6% from their session high to around $279. Meanwhile, investors weighed whether pricier devices would slow upgrades.

IBM Points to a Distant Fix

On the same day, International Business Machines (IBM) unveiled the first sub-1-nanometer chip technology. Its nanostack design stacks transistors in three dimensions.

The result packs nearly 100 billion transistors onto a fingernail-sized chip. That roughly doubles the density of IBM’s 2-nanometer chip from 2021.

IBM claims up to 50% higher performance or 70% better energy efficiency. Such gains could ease the squeeze that now feeds broader chip-driven inflation.

However, production sits roughly five years away. IBM shares rose as much as 6% premarket, then pared the gain as investors weighed the wait.

The contrast captures AI’s two-sided pull on hardware. The boom is lifting device prices today, while the fixes stay years out. For now, the memory crunch is reshaping chip stocks and the AI crypto tokens investors track.

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